


in my fortress alone until you came

by haipollai



Category: The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Forced Marriage (kind of), M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-22
Updated: 2013-01-22
Packaged: 2017-11-26 12:56:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/650749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/haipollai/pseuds/haipollai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Steve murmurs Bucky's name. He wants to list off every time Bucky woke up feeling like he couldn't breathe because of Steve, but he knows Bucky wouldn't listen. The metal arm is between them and Steve doesn't touch more than necessary. He knows Bucky doesn't like it being touched. Doesn't like</i> Steve<i> touching it; he's seen Bucky and Natasha grapple enough to know that Bucky doesn't mind when others touch it.</i></p>
<p>
  <i>It's just Steve.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	in my fortress alone until you came

Steve wakes up to nausea. Intense and sudden. He stumbles out of bed, noting in the back of his mind that Bucky isn't there.

He finds him bent over the toilet in the bathroom. The second he notices Steve, the nausea is gone. His lips move, shaping out the word sorry, but no sound comes out. Steve gets him a glass of water, looking away as Bucky dry heaves. Nothing left in his stomach.

Steve wets a washcloth as well.

Bucky sighs as he slumps backwards against the wall and Steve settles beside him. "How long?"

"Dunno. Didn't want to disturb you."

Steve murmurs Bucky's name. He wants to list off every time Bucky woke up feeling like he couldn't breathe because of Steve, but he knows Bucky wouldn't listen. The metal arm is between them and Steve doesn't touch more than necessary. He knows Bucky doesn't like it being touched. Doesn't like _Steve_ touching it; he's seen Bucky and Natasha grapple enough to know that Bucky doesn't mind when others touch it.

It's just Steve.

But he can feel it as Bucky starts to tremble and he can feel it in his head as cracks start to form between them. Bucky has worked so hard to keep him out, but he can't do it forever. Steve isn't patient but waking up in a new decade has taught him some things about biding his time.

-

Before they find him again, or really before he finds them, Steve draws Bucky all the time. The others don't talk about if they notice. There's a lot about Steve they don't talk about.

There is nothing in his file about any partner, no soulmate, when everyone should have had some inkling by his age. People wonder if it was Peggy, Tony almost asks once. But Pepper steps on his foot with a stiletto before the words come out. Steve isn't sure if he's grateful or not.

It takes him about a week to find out that male-male partnerships are no longer outlawed, no longer deemed improper. In this day and age of atheism and science too many have argued it has something to do with ensuring any child who loses their parents might have someone else willing to take them in. Steve read a little about it before it became too technical.

Someone else thought they had found the genes behind soulmate bonding. Someone else said it was something in the brain. Someone else argued pheromones.

Steve didn't care because none of it mattered to him.

So he draws Bucky as best he can. Sometimes it's not from an image so much as old memories and old feelings making their way to the page. He uses red when he feels emptiest. There's a piece of him missing and no one else around here gets that.

-

Bucky turns into him, surprising them both, pressing his face against Steve's neck and taking a deep shaky breath.

"You should have looked for someone else. Maybe you could get lucky," he mumbles.

"Why would I want someone else?" Steve tangles a hand in Bucky's hair, trimmed down from when he first showed up on Steve's doorstep but still long enough to get a grip on. Steve likes it best that way. When Bucky trimmed it short before leaving for the army, Steve couldn’t hold on. Even then, he felt like he was already losing Bucky.

"Because I had died on you."

"You're not very good at staying dead." He kisses the top of Bucky's head. "You can't block me out you know. We've already tried that, remember?"

He feels it as Bucky's lips curl up into a smile and there's an easing at the back of his mind. "I remember. You were sixteen and convinced you were losing your mind."

"Everyone else had given up on me. Sister Judith had even told me to my face I must be too weak to have a bond."

"Judith was a bitch," Bucky grumbles. "You know she was screwing the Mother Superior, right?"

Steve sighs but doesn't try to suppress his smile. No point anyway when Bucky can feel his emotions. "I don't want to know how you know that. And I never want to picture that again, thanks." He kisses the top of Bucky's head one more time, before gently untangling himself. Bucky doesn't fight too hard and the distance makes Bucky look at him. He leans against the bathroom wall, half naked and too pale, his hair sticking up in a million directions.

He looks like a wreck and Steve is sure there must be something wrong with him for still finding Bucky so gorgeous.

"I slept with Nat, you know," he says softly, eyes boring into Steve's. "While I was the Winter Soldier."

"I know," Steve says softly.

"My handlers didn't know if it was a sign we were soulmates or not. So they let it happen." He closes his eyes, returning to his memories. "Wanted to run tests on us. See if a set of mated assassins would be a good asset. Realized that we weren't to be."

"What happened then?" Steve asks softly when Bucky doesn't say anything for a heartbeat. He sits back down next to him with more water which Bucky takes gratefully.

"Not sure. Think they burned a hole in my head with their fucking device. Nat defected pretty soon after."

-

Word comes through the grapevine, mouth to ear, until it reaches Natasha who goes immediately to Steve.

Someone has sent the Winter Soldier, the myth that she says is absolutely true.

He's coming to kill Captain America in a way that's brutal and bloody and will make a statement. Even America's super soldiers can be destroyed.

Steve tells himself he has to do what is necessary to live. The icon deserves that. The idea that he takes and adopts as his own what America could be, what the whole damn world could be, he has to live for that. To give up and let the Winter soldier do his work would be a betrayal to that.

To Bucky.

So he carries the shield with him everywhere and lets Natasha stay on his couch and Tony set up surveillance.

A week passes and nothing.

Two weeks. He doesn't tell anyone else about the feeling in the back of his mind. The terror that isn't his. He thinks he might just be going crazy because his soulmate fell off a train into ice and cold and brutal, murderous winter.

Steve trusts Natasha when she says the Winter Soldier was real, but maybe the rumor is a lie. Something to scare Captain America underground (not that it did a good job). He doesn't scare easy.

There's a knock on his door during dinner and seconds later all of Steve's phones start ringing off the hook.

Natasha goes for her gun and Steve grabs the shield as he goes to the door, ignoring the incessant ringing.

A man leans heavily on the door frame, face cloaked by long, ragged hair. He looks up and Steve wonders if he can still pass out after all these years.

"Help me, I don't…I don't understand… _please_."

And then James Buchanan Barnes slumps unconscious on top of Steve.

-

Bucky finally shoos Steve out of the bathroom and Steve can hear him brushing his teeth and gargling before he finally comes back to bed. They haven't done anything except sleep beside each other since Bucky came back, almost a month ago now.

It's been long and agonizing, clearing away the last of the conditioning, finding the shards of Bucky and fitting them back together.

The scientists and doctors talk about proximity and study results, and publishing. Steve simply does his best to remember how to deal with the feeling of someone else. The emptiness in his chest doesn't fade right away. They're both resisting.

It's longer still before they can do anything but talk, Steve is scared but he's not sure whose emotion he's feeling or if they're just echoing each other.

The first touch, just a light hands brushing, sends sparks that feel so good they hurt all through Steve and suddenly Bucky’s arms are around Steve, clinging to him. The emptiness finally disappears, overwhelmed by the sudden feeling of Bucky. Of finding the missing piece after so many years. For a few hours, they're both too overwhelmed to figure out who is who. They have to untangle slowly, piece by piece and when they're no longer touching they have to figure out how to get back to how they were seventy years ago.

That's when Bucky's shields come up.

But looking at Bucky now, at the way his pants just barely hang on his hips, the easy way he smiles, Steve wonders if they're finally getting somewhere.

Bucky saunters to the bed, knowing Steve is watching and crawls over him, kissing him slowly. He tastes like mint, sharp and sweet on Steve's tongue. The kissing is good and familiar but slowly Bucky opens himself up more, sucking on Steve's tongue and pulling Steve's hands up to rest on his hips.

Steve doesn't need anymore encouragement to hook his fingers in the hem of Bucky's pants and slowly drag them down over the curve of his ass, to pool around his knees. His hands move back up, sliding over Bucky's thighs to his abdomen.

"You really ready?" Steve whispers.

"No, but I don't care. Sick of waiting until I'm ready." Bucky palms him through his boxers, cutting off any other arguments Steve might come up with if given enough time. "Want you. Want to feel you again for real. Not just a long ago memory." He frees Steve's cock, fingers wrapping around it, slow and careful, but achingly familiar.

He's not sure when Bucky gets the lube but the slick cool gel on his skin makes Steve jump.

"Look at me, Steve," Bucky murmurs, his voice hoarse and needy. Or maybe the neediness is in his own head. He makes his eyes open, makes himself meet Bucky's. The hand around his cock lets go to his disappointment but Bucky slides it into himself instead and Steve figures he can deal with that. There's a burst of lust and pleasure in his head. It's been so long, he thinks he might come just from the feeling of Bucky.

When they were teenagers, and still figuring out their connection, Bucky used to try and see if he could make Steve come just by touching himself. He only got close once but from the glint in his eye, Steve knows he's trying again.

Steve growls and catches Bucky's arm before he can go too far. "I want to be inside of you. No games."

Bucky shivers and doesn't need anymore convincing. There's no more going slow, just the quick movement of hips, and Steve cries out Bucky's name roughly as he rides him. It's all he can do to keep his eyes open and focused on Bucky. Bucky's own eyes are wide open, his pupils swallowing up the brown of his irises. He looks shocked, as if he didn't expect the intensity between them.

He grips Bucky's hips tightly, just holding on, not even pretending to have any control over this or himself. At the last minute, he arches up, catching Bucky's lips. Bucky's erection trapped between them, rubbing against his stomach as Bucky continues moving. They come together, swallowing each other;s cries.

-

It was agreed early on that if James Barnes was leaving SHIELD custody, the only place he was allowed to go was the Avengers Mansion. So Steve moves back in and takes Bucky with him. The others let them have their privacy as they re-figure out their connection.

They all try to be polite, avoid asking many questions when they emerge from Steve's rooms. At first Bucky never leaves, and the only one who comes to visit him is Natasha. They talk for long periods of time together in both Russian and English.

Slowly, Bucky starts to leave more often, until they start to regularly eat breakfast in the communal kitchen.

Bucky seems almost eager the morning after they sleep together. Steve thinks he's proud of them and wants to show off. Kate and Clint are already there, heads bent over the paper together, talking in whispers and touches.

Kate's head shoots up as she notices them, takes one look at the two of them and smiles. "So when's the wedding?" She tries for nonchalant, but the twinkle in her eyes betrays her.

"What?" Bucky sits up a little straighter and looks over at Steve who is just trying to find something to eat. "Wedding?"

"Well, yea," Clint grins, setting a coffee in front of Kate and taking a long sip from his own. "It's pretty much standard these days. What's the point of not getting married if you're soulmates? Who else would you really settle down with? What did they not do that back in the Stone Age?"

Steve finally settles on cereal and takes the box and milk with him to the table. "Two men," he reminds Clint softly. "We weren't even allowed to come out as bonded back then."

Bucky steals a handful of cereal from his bowl before Steve can pour in the milk. He shoots him a dirty look as he adds more cereal.

"It's different now. Come on. Janet and I can plan for you. All you two have to do is ask each other," Kate pleads. "It's more fun to do the whole thing just sign some paperwork."

"If you even need to bother actually asking," Clint adds. Kate rolls her eyes and punches his shoulder lightly.

"I had to ask you, you moron." 

Clint shrugs sheepishly. 

"Well?" Kate looks back at them and no one says anything about the way her hand lingers on Clint's. "You'll have to do the paperwork, SHIELD will get naggy if you don't."

Bucky looks at Steve and Steve can feel the question like a deep intense curiosity laced with fear. But curiosity keeps on winning out. "Well?" He murmurs.

The mouthful of cereal gives Steve an excuse to not say anything back for a minute. 

"Forever?" Steve asks. Bucky leans over to kiss him, his tongue sliding past Steve's lips and the echo that came with every touch sends a shiver through him. He knows the answer even before they separate. 

"Guess you're planning a wedding, Kate," he says. There's a smile on his lips that doesn't go away and he can see it mirrored on Bucky's face.

**Author's Note:**

> For trope_bingo's forced to marry square (i think this qualifies? societal pressure at the end, blah blah). Was originally just playing around in a soulmates verse with lanyon, so it's all her fault (as per usual).


End file.
